1
And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples
of the
Lord, went unto the high priest,

2
And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found
any of
this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto
Jerusalem.

3
And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round
about him a light from heaven:

4
And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul,
why
persecutest thou me?

5
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

6
And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
And
the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told
thee what
thou must do.

7
And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice,
but
seeing no man.

8
And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no
man: but
they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.

9
And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.

10
And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him
said the
Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.

11
And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called
Straight,
and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for,
behold, he
prayeth,

12
And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his
hand
on him, that he might receive his sight.

13
Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much
evil
he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem:

14
And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call
on thy name.

15
But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto
me, to bear
my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:

16
For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.

17
And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands
on
him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in
the way as
thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be
filled with the
Holy Ghost.

18
And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he
received
sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.

19
And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain
days
with the disciples which were at Damascus.

20
And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son
of God.

In a text that does not lack for drama, surely no moment surpasses Saul's
epiphany on the road to Damascus. But A. N. Wilson is less interested
in the effect that Christ had on Saul than on the effect that Paul had
on the form and content of Christianity. The Jesus of Wilson's book
is a kind of hyper Jew, calling the Jewish people back to a stricter observance
of Judaism. In Wilson's view, it was Paul who turned Christ into
the Messiah and turned his teachings into a universal message, accessible
to non-Jews. In essence, Paul becomes the creator of Christianity,
perhaps even of Christ.

From what the critics say, this is not a particularly revolutionary
thesis, in fact, some suggest it is quite hackneyed by now. It does,
of course, require that one accept the idea that Christ was a relatively
minor historical figure who was subsequently inflated into a mythical creature
by his followers. Indeed, biographies like this one, or like John
Dominic Crossan's books on Jesus, by their very nature are intended
to drain Christ and Christianity of any divinity. By seemingly impartial
resort to various texts and the historical record, and the raising of inconsistencies
and obvious inaccuracies in the Biblical record, they seek to cast all
into doubt. But these books have a curious defect, their inability
to explain things much better than the Bible does, and the necessarily
speculative nature of their attempts to reconstruct what "really" happened,
is so unsatisfactory that they can't truly compete effectively with the
original sources they seek, whether explicitly or implicitly, to debunk.

Even if the reader is perfectly willing to accept the notion that Christ
never claimed to be the Son of God and that Saul never experienced his
alleged vision on the road to Damascus, the author who wishes to dismiss
it had better be able to replace it with an equally compelling story of
why Saul became Paul. Because A. N. Wilson has no such competing
vision and because his critique is so random--drawing upon sources when
they help his case, ignoring them when they don't, attacking them when
they contradict him--it has the paradoxical effect of making the original
look good by comparison. After all, given two dubious versions of
Paul's life, the Bible's and Wilson's, why wouldn't we choose the more
awesome one, the one which has inspired Western Civilization for two thousand
years ?

Wilson is a fine writer and he ranges across an impressive number of
topics. He appears to have done yeoman's work in sifting through
the rather voluminous research on Paul and early Christianity. The
book is lively and interesting and readable. It just isn't particularly
convincing. Having gone to such great lengths to try and show that
we must be suspect of the historical version of the physical events of
his life, it was perhaps foolish to try to recreate his psychology and
the life of his mind.